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Jordan Thomas just shakes his head and laughs when his friends say they can’t wait to get their driver’s license.

Jordan isn’t your typical teen pining for that privilege. The 15-year-old Harding native and Wyoming Area sophomore has been driving since he was 5.

That’s right, 5.

While most kids his age are worrying about parallel parking or hitting the curb, Jordan is worried about controlling his race car while sliding around a slick, dirt track at speeds of more than 100 miles per hour.

“I don’t get my permit until February and it’s such a weird feeling, because I can drive a car, but not a normal car,” Jordan said with a chuckle. “It’s definitely going to be weird. I’ll probably have to hold myself back, because it’s going to feel so slow.”

Jordan races a sprint car, an open car with no glass windows, a tiny cockpit, big wheels and huge wings — a far different look than that of a conventional car. He stands about 5-foot-5 and is built like an ironing board, but when the 360-cubic-inch engine that produces more than 700 horsepower starts, he handles it with ease.

In just his first season in the Capital Region Sprint Car Agency, Thomas has won two races. The most recent win came in late August at 5-Mile Point Speedway, a quarter-mile oval track in Kirkwood, N.Y. He was recently named the CRSA Rookie of the Year and finished the season second in the point standings.

The success he enjoyed should help him when he and his family go to Indianapolis for a trade show in December. There the Thomas family will boast and brag about Jordan’s successes in hopes of earning more sponsorship deals. The cost of racing a sprint car is more than $100,000 and sponsorship is vital.

“This year will be a barometer, because there is a big trade show in Indianapolis. It makes it a little easier going from booth to booth and saying hey, this is Jordan Thomas and he has finished second in the points and won two races,” Jordan’s father Jeff Thomas said. “With Jordan being so young, sponsorship gravitates toward the young guys. The future is so wide open for him.”

For Jordan, it was a matter of when, not if, he was going to be a sprint car driver. After watching his father race sprint cars countless hours, he knew that’s what he wanted to do.

“I’m just following in my dad’s footsteps. It’s a family thing,” Jordan said. “I still watch the tapes. I’m studying and watching the track and how they have changed. It’s pretty cool, because he used to race the same tracks I’m racing right now.”

Jordan wishes he could race sprint cars forever, because of the thrill he gets while racing. The thrill he talks about is the reason he races. It’s also the reason his father raced and both said it’s hard to explain the feeling you get when you’re behind the wheel.

“I have gone over 100 miles per hour before and it’s just such a thrill,” Jordan said. “I get butterflies before the race, but once the car starts I am fine and I just want to go faster.”

The thrill his father gets from watching his son is different than the thrill he got when he was behind the wheel.

“I never thought there would be something to replace the thrill of driving a car, but watching your son do it is pretty close,” Jeff Thomas said. “I drove these things for 20 years and I was always the guy in the drivers seat. I looked at my wife and I said, ‘How the heck did you people sit here and watch me do this?’”

Jordan’s ultimate dream is NASCAR, but in order to do that he must move away from the comfort of dirt and into the unknown world of asphalt.

“I have to go to NASCAR to make a living,” Jordan said. “It will probably be a different thrill, but I would love to do it someday.”

For Jordan’s mother, Denise, it has become a little easier to watch her son compete in motorsports, but she admits it’s still very difficult at times. She is also very active in her son’s career, taping every race.

“Looking through that little viewfinder helps me, because I am focused on him. If I didn’t have that camera and had to watch everything going on, I would be more scared,” she said.

As tough as it is for Jordan’s mother to let him race, when she really thinks about it, it’s an easy decision.

“He loves it. This has been his dream for years. I can wrap him in a plastic bubble, but how could you tell him no to something he loves?” His mother said. “You have to let him live.”

jhorton@citizensvoice.com

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